Yupadee Tuchinda, deputy managing director of Kasikorn Securi-ties, said yesterday that the four new FIFs fully shield investors from potential foreign exchange risk and are exempted from tax for general investors.

KEFF6MN will invest in deposits of Garanti Bank in Turkey and Bank of China and invest in debt instruments of Bank of East Asia and Akbank in Turkey, BTG Investments, which is backed by BTG Pactual Holding of Brazil.

KEFF1YI fund will invest in deposits of Bank of China, debt instruments of Bank of East Asia and BTG Investments. It will also invest in debt instruments of ICBC (Asia) in Hong Kong and deposits of China Construction Bank Corporation.

Somchai Boonamsiri, managing director of Krungthai Securities, said his company will launch the 12-month KTFF40 with minimum investment of Bt5,000 today. Subscriptions are open until Tuesday.

The fund will focus on foreign bonds - fixed deposits of China Construction Bank, deposits of the Bank of China, MTN issued by ICBC Asia, MTN issued by the Agricultural Bank of China and ECP - collateral by SBER Bank. Investors will earn about 3.10-3.20 per cent.

The company is also planning to roll out a three-month, open-ended fund called Smart Invest, which will focus on deposits and deposit cards, Government Savings Bank and Tisco Bank, making up 36 per cent of net asset value.

The rest will be invested in bills of exchange of the private sector. The expected return on investment is about 2.50 per cent.

The returns of some debt instruments in the past week were subjected to downward revision, especially those maturing in less a year, which slipped below the 2.25-per-cent Bank of Thailand policy rate.